Parking Investigator Charges Cover-Up of Bogus Ticketing

By FELICIA R. LEE

Published: September 7, 1991

The parking tickets were certainly bogus, all 997 of them. After all, investigators for the Department of Transportation had forced the traffic agent who made them up and stuffed them in his locker to quit. But they looked real to the hundreds of drivers who received them when they were sent out -- real enough that about 125 of them were paid.

The New York City Council President, Andrew J. Stein, yesterday called for an investigation into the $40,000 worth of bad tickets. He said that not only were the bogus tickets issued after investigators knew of the fraud, but the agent who wrote them was allowed to resign without facing criminal charges and the investigator who discovered the fraud was demoted.

Transportation Commissioner Lucius J. Riccio, who said yesterday that he had learned of the mistakes only two weeks ago, said that he wanted an investigation into why the tickets went out after his investigators caught the agent, James Graham, in June.

"I immediately ordered the tickets voided and any money paid returned," Mr. Riccio said yesterday. Transportation officials said that the ticket records and fines were all purged from the department's computers by Aug. 28 and that the refunds should be sent out by next week. 'Official Gangsterism' Is Charged

The bogus tickets were never placed on cars, but were recorded on the city's computers for collection, and summonses were sent out. The tickets were issued for about 12 months ending this June in Harlem and midtown Manhattan, investigators said.

Mr. Stein and Thomas Ruiz, the investigator who discovered the false tickets, charged yesterday that such abuses by agents are rampant, and blamed the pressure of ticket quotas and lax supervision. Mr. Ruiz is on leave from the bureau.

"This is official gangsterism," Mr. Stein said during a news conference. "If you have a government that is so corrupt that when they know there is wrongdoing and they don't protect the public, something is wrong."

Mr. Riccio said that he was asking the Department of Investigation to explore the charges made by Mr. Ruiz and Mr. Stein. He vowed that Mr. Ruiz would not be punished.

Mr. Riccio denied that agents worked under a quota system, but he said he was aware of some abuses. He acknowledged that some agents feel that there is a quota, and that of the 2,000 agents, about 150 agents are disciplined each year.

"If there was any wrongdoing, we'll take immediate and decisive action," Mr. Riccio said. Complaint of Retaliation

Mr. Ruiz said that he was told by an assistant commissioner, Victor Rosen, not to dismiss the false tickets and also not to arrest the agent, even though the Inspector General's office had directed him to do so after he went to them. Mr. Ruiz said that 11 days later he was told that his unit was being reorganized and that he would be working as a traffic agent -- with the people he had investigated. He said he went on leave rather than take the job.

Mr. Riccio said that while some supervisors might have been intimidated, he did not know whether there had been actual violence. He said that allowing the officer who wrote the tickets to resign rather than face criminal charges sent "a very bad message."

"I want D.O.I. to advise me on that," Mr. Riccio said.

Peter Benjaminson, a spokesman for the Department of Investigation, said that the department never told Mr. Ruiz that Mr. Graham should be arrested. Instead, he said they told Mr. Ruiz that it was the Transportation Department's job to decide what to do about the agent. The spokesman said that the latest charges, including harassment, would be investigated.